Our survey was to begin early on Tuesday morning. We met up at
Tilbury and arranged to board the ship on Monday afternoon. We
spent the remaining daylight hours on the bridge trying to spot the
Beluga Whale currently in the Thames, sadly it remained
elusive.

Survey Day 1 - Southend to Chichester

Our survey began as we neared Southend-on-Sea. The sightings
were initially dominated by Great Black-backed Gull. There are
several Seal haul-outs off the north Kent coast and, with a
favourable tide, three sandbanks between Herne Bay and Margate
resulted in a count of almost 230 Seals. By the time we
reached Deal on the approach to the Dover Straits we started to see
Herring Gull, Kittiwake and Gannet. Some avian migrants were
recorded including a small charm of Goldfinch and a solitary Meadow
Pipit. In the early afternoon Robin spotted a Harbour Porpoise, our
only cetacean sighting of the day. Gannet were seen throughout the
remainder of the day with an occasional sighting of a Great Skua
and gulls surrounding a couple of fishing vessels that we
encountered. The days survey ended when we were due south of
Hayling Island.

Day 2 - Brittany to the Northern shelf break

When we reached the bridge, we had just rounded Brittany and we
were now heading south. The conditions were a bit misty.

We have to thank the Gannet and Great Shearwater for our first
sightings of cetacean. There was a couple of large groups all
swirling around and on closer inspection dolphin were
spotted. They were most likely Common Dolphin but they were
too interested in feeding and did not give us a good look at
them.

There was a period of a couple of hours where there was
continuous light rain but at around 14:00 it stopped and within a
few minutes the Common Dolphin started pouring into the bow of the
ship. Over a period of about 20 minutes over 200 attempted the joy
of a bow ride. No other type of cetacean was spotted that
day.

Common Dolphin (Carol Farmer-Wright)

The vast bulk of the birds were Gannet and Great Shearwater but
a few migrating terrestrials were also seen. There was a pair of
Juvenile Pied Wagtails that joined the ship at 9:30. The last time
they were seen was just before we finished at 18:20 so we presume
Bilbao now has a couple of new residents. 3 Blackcaps also joined
the ship for a while as well as a couple of Meadow Pipits.

Pied Wagtail (Robin Langdon)

Our third day was spent in Santurzi, unloading and loading the
new cargo bound for the UK and Western Europe so no surveying was
possible.

Survey Day 3 - The Abyssal plain to the Continental
shelf

We left Santurzi at 3 am in the morning. By 7.30 am there was
sufficient light to begin our survey for the day. At the time we
were over the abyssal plain with more than 4000 meters of water
below us. Bird sightings were initially slow, with only a few
Gannet and a single Great Shearwater appearing in the first 5
hours. The only other birds seen during the day were a Chaffinch, 3
Little Gull, 1 Meadow Pipit and a Guillemot. Whilst travelling we
hoped to encounter some of the whales that frequent these deeper
waters, sadly they did not make an appearance. Our first cetacean
sighting of the day occurred just as we were leaving the deeper
water on the shelf break, just before the continental shelf. A
small pod of Striped Dolphin attempted to come in to bow ride. As
soon as they realised that they had left their charge too late,
they slowed down and turned away only 150 meters from the ship. We
hoped that we would see Common Dolphin again on the shelf and we
were not to be disappointed. In a period of 50 minutes we
encountered at least 93 Common Dolphin, some kept their distance
feeding, the remainder came in to bow ride from all forward angles.
A great way to end the days survey.

Survey Day 4 - Brittany coast to Cherbourg
peninsula

This was a day of one extreme to another. We went Dawn
till Dusk, Sunrise to Sunset, Long lulls to many animals.

We were into the English Channel after rounding Brittany the
previous night. We looked out to see strange entities
floating on the surface, that turned out to be large rafts of
seaweed. We saw these several times throughout the day.

As far as cetaceans go we saw both Common Dolphin and a small
group of Bottlenose Dolphin. They mainly stayed away from the
ship but a few did come into to attempt to ride the bow.

Most disappointingly after our dinner at about 16:30 our most
common sighting was bits of plastic. We did stick it out to
the bitter end with the hope that as there was a clear line of
sight to the setting sun we might see the green flash as it finally
sets. Alas no flash was seen. (The Bitter End is an old naval
term meaning the last part of a rope or final link of chain. The
end attached to the vessel, as opposed to the "working end" which
may be attached to an anchor).

Survey day 5 - Dover Strait to Tilbury

Today was to be our last day of surveying. We started our survey
as we approached the Strait of Dover, just west of
Boulogne-sur-Mer.

In Autumn there is quite often a haze over the sea, this
continued throughout the day, limiting our visibility near the
horizon. There are shipping lane rules that have to be obeyed over
this very busy part of the Channel. Permissions have to be sought
to cross from the northbound lane off the French coast, to the
River Thames approach where the London Port Authority (LPA) pilot
would join us.

Great Black-backed Gull (Carol Farmer-Wright)

As we moved North towards the Thames we evidenced some of the
avian migrants flying to the UK to winter, Starling, Wagtail and
Chaffinch being among them. Pelagic birds encountered were
primarily Gannet, Great Black-backed Gull with a few Guillemot,
Razorbill and Herring Gull making an appearance together with a
Black-throated Diver.

Four hours into the survey we encountered a small group of
Harbour Porpoise, but we were unable to see the seal colonies off
of the Kent coast owing to the tide being in. We did however see
seals hauled out further up the Thames as we approached East
Tilbury, a small group of 5 animals, Harbour and Grey Seal were
enjoying the autumn sunshine.

We hoped to see the Beluga that had been around Gravesend before
our survey ended, however the LPA pilot advised that it had been
seen further up the Thames near Greenhithe earlier that morning and
we were to dock about 2 miles short of the area it had been
encountered. The pilot also advised us that the Beluga was first
seen by the LPA in July near Shell Haven further down river.

Ensemble in the Thames (Adrian Shephard)

As the captain started to manoeuvre the ship onto the berth, we
thanked him and made our way downstairs to collect our belongings
before departing the ship.

Our thanks go to JR Shipping, Captain Oleg Pyatnytskyy, his
Officers and crew together with John Brown the Tilbury agents for
enabling this survey to go ahead.

Carol Farmer-Wright and Robin Langdon, Research
Surveyors for MARINElife